“The Secret History” by Donna Tartt (post 4): Protagonist has more symptoms suggesting multiple personality, but did author intend to suggest it?

As the story continues, Richard—the first-person narrator whose memory gap (a cardinal symptom of multiple personality) was noted in the last post—continues to have dissociative symptoms seen in multiple personality.

Separate Memory Banks

“…by some purely subconscious means, I had developed a successful mental block about the murder and everything pertaining to it. I talked about it in select company but seldom thought of it when alone” (1, p. 298).

Comment

When a person without multiple personality is alone and there is nothing to distract him from it, he might be particularly preoccupied with a murder he had committed. Why isn’t this true of Richard? He tends to think about the murder only in the presence of the other murderers.

It is typical of multiple personality that a particular alternate personality will come out only in situations which make that particular personality relevant. When Richard is alone, there is nothing going on that makes his murder personality relevant, so it doesn’t come out and he doesn't think about the murder.

Mirror reflection or body parts

that seem like somebody else

“…at first I wasn’t aware that I was crying…The sobs were regular and emotionless…there was no reason for them, they had nothing to do with me. I brought my head up and looked at my weeping reflection in the mirror with a kind of detached interest” (1, p. 278).

“I got up, and as I did my reflection rose to meet me, head-on in the opposite mirror; it stopped and stared…” (1, p. 328).

“My hands dangled from the cuffs of my jacket as if they weren’t my own” (1, p. 352).

Search “mirror” and “mirrors” in this blog for the many past posts in which mirrors in multiple personality are discussed with regard to other writers.

Comment

I am two-thirds though the novel, and until I read the rest of it, I won’t know whether the author is intentionally building a case for multiple personality or has been including these symptoms only because she considers them ordinary psychology. (They are ordinary only for people with multiple personality.)

1. Donna Tartt. The Secret History. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.